Time Machine

Homebrew - All Grain APA

This was my first all grain. To make it extra special I drunkenly made my own recipe using Beer Smith to guide me.

Ingredients

All grain with 6 lbs of grain.

5 lbs - 2 row

1 lbs - Crystal 40L

1.0oz - Cascade Pellet Hops (Bittering)

0.75 oz - Fuggle Pellet Hops (Aroma)

White Labs English Ale WLP002

Method

Heat 7.5 quarts of water to 169.

Add all the grains to the mash tun and add the water. Mash for 60 minutes, stir half way through.

Heat 9.75 quarts of water to 168.

Drain the wort slowly and sparge. Try to keep some water above the grain bed.

Add water to achieve a boil volume of 4.3 gallons.

Bring wort to the boil.

0 Add bittering hops. (Cascade)

Boil for 30 minutes.

30 Add aroma hops. (Fuggle)

Boil for 5 minutes.

35 Add a tea spoon of Irish moss and the wort chiller.

Boil for 10 minutes.

45 Cool wort to 65 degrees and pour through a strainer into a fermenting bucket.

Take a hydrometer reading, add the yeast and ferment for 3 weeks.

I realized that I could fit maybe 1 more pound of grain in my mash tun. It is worth a try next time. My mash water dropped to 159 after adding it to the grain, it was 152 at the half way mark and 144 at the end. I am not 100% sure those temperatures are correct, the last one seems low given the middle reading. I topped up the boil with 0.3 gallons to make it 4.3. This was terrifying in a 5 gallon pot, I would not do that again. After adding the wort chiller the boil never really got going again, next time I must make sure I have the stove up high when I add it. By the time the wort was in the bucket I had around 3.75 gallons. The OG ended up lower than the target of 1.052, I got 1.039. Shows my process needs some work (or my calculations).

Due to a surplus of homebrew I left these a long time before drinking them. The head looked great and had plenty of retention. I was really happy with the color. It smelt quite malty and did not have any weird homebrew smells. The taste was similar, malty and a little bitter. It was very smooth to drink and all of the flavors were mellow. No green homebrew tastes or any strange stuff. All things considered I was very happy with how this turned out. Perhaps next time I will up the grain by a pound and maybe add another .25 oz of hops to counter it. To do the same volume I need a bigger boil pot though, 4.3 gallons in 5 gallons is way too sketchy.